Australia · Years 1 to 10 · Checked at FIRST Australia

FIRST LEGO League Australia coding help

FIRST LEGO League gives Australian students a real engineering season: a themed problem to research, a LEGO robot to design and program, and a robot game where every second of a two and a half minute run counts. Many teams build an impressive robot and then lose points because it stops a few centimetres short of a mission model. That is usually a programming problem, and it is fixable. This page explains the divisions and the 2026-2027 season as FIRST Australia publishes them, then shows the arithmetic behind accurate driving. We are independent of FIRST and help students program; the robot and the season's work stay the team's own.

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Checked at firstaustralia.org on 7 October 2026 · Independent of FIRST · The team's own robot

In short

FIRST LEGO League in Australia has three divisions: Explore for ages 6 to 10, Challenge for ages 9 to 16, and Future Edition for ages 8 to 16, new for 2026-2027. The 2026-2027 season is BIOGLOW, on biodiversity. Challenge robots run autonomous 2:30 matches and can be coded in Word Blocks, Icon Blocks or Python, according to FIRST Australia.

Where to start

Three courses for FIRST LEGO League team members

Blocks first, then text, with plenty of attention to movement and measurement.

Coding for Kids course thumbnail

FLL / 01

Coding for kids

Loops, conditions and procedures in blocks, the same building blocks as a SPIKE word-block program.

Open the syllabus →
Python and AI for Kids course thumbnail

FLL / 02

Python and AI for kids

For team members ready to try the Python option FIRST Australia lists.

Open the syllabus →
Maths Through Coding course thumbnail

FLL / 03

Maths through coding

Circumference, ratios and angles used in code, which is exactly what accurate driving needs.

Open the syllabus →

Divisions

Explore, Challenge and the new Future Edition

FIRST Australia's program comparison sets out who each division is for and how it runs. These are its figures, read on 7 October 2026.

FIRST LEGO League divisions in Australia, 2026-2027
ExploreChallengeFuture Edition
StudentsAges 6 to 10 (Years 1 to 4)Ages 9 to 16 (Years 4 to 10)Ages 8 to 16 (Years 3 to 10)
Team sizeUp to 6 studentsUp to 10 studentsUp to 8 students
CoachesAt least 1At least 2At least 2
Robot gameNo matches; models built and sharedAutonomous matches of 2:30Autonomous matches of 2:30
TechnologyLEGO Education SPIKE EssentialLEGO Education SPIKE PrimeLEGO Education Computer Science and AI kits
Events12 Explore festivals and a National Festival in December, Sydney70+ qualifying competitions and national championships in DecemberQualifying events to be confirmed; national championship in December, Sydney
Weekly time, approx.1 hour2 hours2 hours

Challenge, the best-known division, lists 950 or more teams nationally and four national championships in December, in Sydney, Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane. Explore lists 380 or more teams. Future Edition is in its first season in 2026-2027.

For every division, FIRST Australia lists Word Blocks, Icon Blocks or Python as coding options, and says teams can be school or community based.

Registrations opened on May 25, 2026 and the season kicked off on August 4, 2026, so teams are now in the build-and-practise stretch of the year.

Older students can move on to FIRST Tech Challenge, for ages 12 to 18, and FIRST Robotics Competition, for ages 14 to 18, which FIRST Australia describes in the same comparison.

Sources: FIRST Australia, compare programs; FIRST Australia, FIRST LEGO League. Read 7 October 2026. Registration costs, kit costs and budgets printed there are not repeated here.

The season

BIOGLOW, and what a season asks of a team

Each FIRST LEGO League season has a theme. For 2026-2027 it is BIOGLOW, part of the global FIRST CANOPY season, on biodiversity.

FIRST Australia describes BIOGLOW as an invitation to explore the variety of life on the planet, from microscopic organisms and glowing fungi to plants, animals and the ecosystems that connect them. Teams investigate real-world challenges, develop solutions, and design and code LEGO robots.

To support the theme, Macquarie University's Faculty of Science and Engineering has produced a series of videos with biodiversity and conservation experts, according to FIRST Australia.

For Challenge teams, the season has two strands that both need programming thinking: the robot game, where an autonomous robot attempts missions on a shared table, and an innovation project researched and presented by the team.

FIRST Australia offers free training modules for coaches, educators and volunteers, covering team management, robot building and programming, and competition preparation.

Where programming shows up across a Challenge season
Stage of the seasonProgramming taskWhat good looks like
Early weeksDrive straight and turn accuratelyThe robot lands within a few millimetres, run after run
Middle weeksOne mission at a timeEach mission is its own short, named program
Later weeksChain missions into one runMissions start from known positions, not from where the last one ended
Before eventsReliability testingEvery program is tested many times and failures are logged
JudgingExplaining the codeEvery team member can describe how the robot decides what to do

Worked lesson

Motor degrees into millimetres, and why small errors grow

Most robot game misses come from distance, not from strategy. The arithmetic below is ours; the wheel sizes are examples, so measure your own.

One turn of the wheel

A wheel moves the robot one circumference per full turn: pi times the diameter. Suppose the wheel is 56 mm across. One turn moves the robot about 175.9 mm.

Degrees for a distance

Motors are usually told how many degrees to turn. For 500 mm: 500 divided by 175.9 is about 2.842 turns, and 2.842 times 360 is about 1,023 degrees.

The hidden error

Tyres squash a little, so the wheel may act like 55 mm, not 56. Then 1,023 degrees moves only about 491.1 mm, almost 9 mm short of the mission.

Programmed for a 56 mm wheel, driven on one that behaves like 55 mm (our calculation)
Planned distanceDegrees programmedActual distanceShort by
250 mm512245.5 mm4.5 mm
500 mm1,023491.1 mm8.9 mm
1,000 mm2,046982.1 mm17.9 mm
2,000 mm4,0931,964.3 mm35.7 mm

The shortfall is always the same fraction, here 1 part in 56, so it grows in step with distance. Over a single short move it hardly matters; across a two and a half minute run that drives two metres or more, the robot can finish several centimetres from where the program believes it is, and a mission model is missed by a whisker. Two habits fix most of this. First, measure the real distance per turn by driving a known number of degrees and measuring with a ruler, then use that measured value in the program instead of the printed wheel size. Second, give the robot something real to line up against during a run, such as a wall or a line on the table, so each mission starts from a known position and errors cannot carry over.

The same idea for turns

Turning on the spot works the same way, except the distance is part of a circle traced by the wheels. Small differences between the left and right wheels make a robot curve gently, which is why a gyro sensor reading is often used to correct the heading.

Students who calculate a turn, test it and adjust from measurements learn more than those who keep nudging numbers by trial and error.

Why judges care

Being able to explain how a program achieves accuracy is part of describing a robot's design. A team member who can say "we measured 172.8 mm per turn and line up on the wall before mission three" shows real understanding.

The same measuring habit carries into secondary maths and science, where calibrating an instrument before trusting it is standard practice.

How we help

Making team members stronger programmers

FIRST LEGO League is a team's own season. Our role is to teach programming and debugging so the team's robot does what the team intends.

Lessons cover movement and measurement, sensors such as colour and gyro, splitting a run into named missions, starting each mission from a known position, and testing until a result is repeatable. Students work on small exercises and then explain how they would apply the idea to their own robot.

For students ready for text code, we introduce Python gently, since FIRST Australia lists it alongside Word Blocks and Icon Blocks. The ideas transfer directly; only the notation changes.

We do not write a team's robot game programs, design its robot or prepare its innovation project. Coaches and team members do that work, and judges expect it.

We do not promise an award, a place at a national championship or any result. We teach the habits that make a robot reliable, which is what a season rewards.

A term of programming support for a Challenge team member
WeeksFocusSign of progress
1 and 2Measuring distance per turnDrives 500 mm within a few millimetres, three times running
3 and 4Accurate turns with a gyroTurns 90 degrees and recovers if nudged
5 and 6Missions as named programsCan run any mission on its own from a known start
7 and 8Lining up on the tableUses a wall or line to reset position between missions
9 and 10Testing and explainingKeeps a run log and explains each design choice

Growing as a robot programmer

Four rungs from Explore to Challenge and beyond

Divisions follow age, but skill grows in its own order.

From first moving model to a reliable robot run
AroundRungThe sign it is secure
Years 1 to 41. Makes a model moveBuilds and codes a moving model in Explore
Years 4 to 62. Moves accuratelyDrives and turns by measured amounts
Years 6 to 83. Plans a runSplits a run into missions with known start points
Years 8 to 104. Engineers reliabilityTests, logs and fixes until runs repeat

When the robot misses

Measure before changing code. Was it short, long, or turned? Each points to a different fix.

Run the same program five times. One miss is noise; five misses the same way is a pattern you can fix.

Related reading

For another robotics competition, see RoboCup Junior Australia coding help.

The competitions calendar lists coding and maths contests through the year.

The catalogue

Nine courses for FIRST LEGO League students

Grouped from first blocks to text code and reasoning. Each card opens its syllabus.

I

First coding

Explore and early Challenge

FLL / FC / 03

Computational thinking

Breaking a mission into steps.

Open the syllabus
II

Measurement and maths

Accurate robots

FLL / MM / 01

Maths through coding

Circumference, ratio and angle in code.

Open the syllabus

FLL / MM / 02

Mental maths for kids

Quick estimates before testing.

Open the syllabus

FLL / MM / 03

Middle years maths

Geometry behind turning and driving.

Open the syllabus
III

Text code

Python and beyond

FLL / TX / 03

Problem solving for teens

Logic for harder challenges.

Open the syllabus

How lessons run

Live online lessons that fit around team meetings

Teachers work from India, behind Australian clocks: Melbourne is four and a half hours ahead of India time in winter and five and a half in summer, and Perth two and a half all year. An Australian after-school lesson therefore runs in the Indian afternoon, so it can sit alongside a team's weekly meeting.

Weekday afternoon

A programming idea learned and practised.

Weekend session

Applying the idea to the student's own robot.

Before a tournament

Reliability testing and explaining the code.

Measure, then code

Students use real measurements instead of guessed numbers.

The team's robot

We teach and question; the team builds and programs.

Blocks or Python

Whichever the team uses, with a path to the other.

Groups of fifteen to twenty

Students at a similar level sharing methods.

One-to-one option

For the team member leading the programming.

No result promised

Referees and judges decide; we build the skills.

Student work

Projects our students made themselves

Built for the joy of it, outside any season. More in the student labs.

NutriLife AI nutrition coach project screenshot

AI and ML

NutriLife

An AI nutrition coach that reads what you eat and works you toward a target.

by Bhavya · Open it

Misti AI chatbot for maths and coding screenshot

AI and ML

Misti

A chatbot that answers mathematics and programming questions, built and deployed by a student.

by Harshit · Open it

GuardianX AI internet safety assistant screenshot

AI and ML

GuardianX

An assistant that helps a young person recognise unsafe situations online.

by Vivaan · Open it

SkyCast weather forecast application screenshot

Web app

SkyCast

A weather forecasting site with live conditions for any location.

by Krish

Fees

Fees

Lessons are billed each month in US dollars at our international rate, with no joining fee and no contract. Team registration and kits are bought separately from FIRST Australia and its suppliers, not through us.

Free first class

USD 0

no card required

  • A first lesson that costs nothing
  • A look at how the student programs now
  • No card details
Book it

Group batch

USD 100

a month, billed in US dollars

  • Fifteen to twenty students at one level
  • One teacher for the whole term
  • Movement and sensor exercises done together
  • A certificate on finishing
Start here

One to one

USD 150

a month, billed in US dollars

  • A teacher for a single student
  • Time on that student's own team programs
  • Times arranged around team meetings
Enquire

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Reviews taken word for word from our Google listing.

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Questions about FIRST LEGO League

What families and coaches ask

What is FIRST LEGO League?

A global robotics program in which teams research a themed problem and design, build and code LEGO robots. In Australia it is run by FIRST Australia in three divisions: Explore, Challenge and Future Edition.

Which division suits my child?

Explore is for ages 6 to 10 (Years 1 to 4), Challenge for ages 9 to 16 (Years 4 to 10) and Future Edition for ages 8 to 16 (Years 3 to 10), according to FIRST Australia.

What is the 2026-2027 season theme?

BIOGLOW, part of the global FIRST CANOPY season, which explores biodiversity from glowing fungi to whole ecosystems.

How long is a robot game match?

Challenge and Future Edition matches run for 2:30 and the robot is autonomous. Explore has no matches; teams build and share models instead.

What coding languages can teams use?

FIRST Australia lists Word Blocks, Icon Blocks or Python for its FIRST LEGO League divisions.

What is wheel circumference, and why does it matter?

The distance around a wheel, equal to pi times its diameter. It is how far a robot travels in one full wheel turn, so it turns motor degrees into millimetres.

How many students are in a team?

Up to 6 in Explore, up to 10 in Challenge and up to 8 in Future Edition, with at least one coach for Explore and two for the others.

Will you program our robot?

No. We teach team members programming, measurement and debugging so the team can program its own robot and explain it to judges.

When are the national championships?

FIRST Australia lists Challenge national championships in December in Sydney, Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane, and a Future Edition championship in December in Sydney.

Can lessons start mid-season?

Yes. Many students join once a robot exists and the team discovers its runs are not repeatable, which is exactly what the lessons address.

Related pages

More for Australian students

Robotics, competitions and next steps in coding.

RoboCup Junior Australia

Dance, rescue and soccer robots.

Competitions calendar

Every contest by month.

After Scratch, Python

Moving from blocks to text.

Coding for Year 7

The first year of secondary coding.

Coding classes in Australia

Every state and every age.

Coding classes for kids

What an online class looks like.

Start here

Book a free robot programming class

Tell us the division, the year level and how the team codes now. The free class works through accurate driving with a teacher and ends with a clear next step.

Would you rather read first? All course outlines sit on the course atlas, and how we teach explains our lessons.

WhatsApp us · +91 91233 66161 · connect@modernagecoders.com

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